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Exhibition Details

 

Southern Guild presents iLobola by ceramic artist Zizipho Poswa, opening on 25th March 2021 and running until 1st July 2021. The exhibition – Poswa’s debut solo – includes 12 iconic sculptures made from hand-coiled clay combined with cast bronze for the first time. The artist’s work is gaining significant international attention with a recent acquisition by the Philadelphia Museum of Art, two years after the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) bought a pair of sculptures.
Born in 1979 in the town of Mthatha in the Eastern Cape province, Poswa studied surface design at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology. She draws on this knowledge to amalgamate the visual stimuli she encounters in her daily life into a simplified pattern language. In 2006, she and fellow ceramicist Andile Dyalvane opened their studio, Imiso (meaning tomorrow) Ceramics. 
iLobola pays homage to the spiritual offering at the heart of the ancient African custom of lobola, or bride-wealth: the cow. Whereas traditionally the groom’s family would gift a certain number of cows to the bride’s family after a process of negotiation between the two parties, in more recent times the animals are often replaced by a monetary payment–leading the practice to be viewed as more commercial in nature. But this obscures the primary purpose of lobola, says Poswa–that of ukwakhiwa kobuhlobo, the building of relations between the two families.
“During the negotiation process, the families really get to know each other. They talk about what bonds the couple together and even identify potential pitfalls to the marriage. When the couple faces problems down the line, they have this safety net to turn to. I think it’s a really beautiful structure that brings stability,” says Poswa.
iLobola also raises questions that it disempowers and objectifies women, but Poswa unapologetically overrides this perception, choosing to celebrate both strength and sensuality in her work. The 12 sculptures in iLobola reach up to two metres high–her biggest yet–each emblazoned with a pair of massive bronze horns that pierce the air. Their voluminous bases take the form of huge conical teardrops, undulating gourds or giant barrels that invite anthropomorphic associations.
Like some of Poswa’s earlier works, this series straddles figuration and abstraction, employing an intuitive vocabulary of shape, colour and texture. Her artistic practice revolves around aspects of Black female identity in present-day South Africa, paying homage to the sacrifices of mothers, asserting the importance of sisterhood and celebrating unimpaired cultural spaces such as the traditional African hair salon–where Western influence has remained at bay. 
 

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Exhibition Videos

  • Zizipho Poswa iLobola - Southern Guild & BMW